Everything I need to know about life I learned from {sheepishly} watching "Twilight."

Forgive me. Truly.

I caved.

I watched "Twilight."

No - I'll be honest : I watched ALL THREE. And (GASP) I actually went and found a Breaking Dawn trailer of my own free will. And enjoyed it.

Shame, shame, shame.

Maybe it was a morbid curiosity about whether or not these movies would live up to the terrible hype. They did. They were pretty terrible.

Maybe it was the fact that Mr Wonderful was the first one to suggest (in earnest) that we hole up at our vacation cabin and "watch the Twilight movies."

Maybe it was the fact that I do love bad teen movies, regardless (let's go way back to the inexplicable heydays Freddie Prinze and Julia Stiles in movies like "She's All That" and "10 Things I Hate About You"). They're fun. They're filled with that geeky brand of angst that's hard to fathom now that I'm a "grown-up."

Maybe I just felt marginally pop-culture illiterate when the stars of these movies became such hot Hollywood commodities and I had no idea if these kids could act to save their lives or not (for the most part: nope).

WHATEVER my weak little rationale, one thing's for certain -- much like my foray into "The Hills" yielded so many indispensable life lessons, the same is true for the Sparkly, Mouth-Breathing, Swaggering, Shirt-Eschewing, Brooding, Twilight characters.

Everything I need to know about life I learned from watching Twilight.

1 - Teenage girls are stupid, melodramatic twits who ought to be avoided at all costs, particularly when they think they're "IN LOVE." You can't trust 'em not to dive off cliffs, or run off with werewolves, or thrill-seek on the back of a sketchy guy's motorcycle, or wear nothing but flannel shirts. Twits, I tell ya.

2 - Gloomy, rainy climates make people moody, morose,  maudlin, and -- GASP --  prone to drab clothing. Seriously - there is a "NO SMILING, NO COLOR PINK" policy in dreary weather.

3 - It doesn't matter what part of the country you're in: cops love a good mustache.

4 - Someone's ACTUAL age doesn't matter as long as they LOOK like they're about 18 and are at ease in high school classrooms. In fact, you can be a spooky, concave-faced centenarian, but as long as you stake your claim to a table in the cafeteria, you're no longer a creepy predator. Boom. You're a brooding, mysterious sex symbol.

5 - Doctors with lots of fully-grown, adopted children have the coolest houses on the block.

6 - Movie prom dress fashion will ALWAYS be lame.

7 - If you're going to shape-shift into a giant, fluffy dog, make sure you wear homemade Bermuda shorts. Shirts are a pain when you're shape-shifting, but those denim cutoffs make the transformation to were-creature a lot easier. Plus, no one messes with a pack of dudes in homemade denim Bermuda shorts.

8 - Kids in capes are creepy. They're probably up to no good.

9 - Being grounded is flexible. If your mustachioed cop-dad grounds you, just be really, really punctual about his curfew. It will drive him nuts, he'll accuse you of brown-nosing, and will lift the grounding in order to force you to spend some face-time with your were-buddies. Just sayin. Punctuality and obedience are real buzz-kills for cop-dads.

10 - If you're un-dead, go with the darker hair color. Blonde is really unforgiving on dead skin.

11 - Cute, perky girls give the best graduation speeches.

12 - You may really struggle with maintaining the will to live when your pasty-faced, predatory, centenarian boyfriend dumps you and leaves town, but after those screaming nightmares abate and the food aversion subsides and you start going to school again, watch out. You may just need to dash off to Italy to save that boyfriend's life, and when he agrees to Vampire You Up in exchange for marriage, you'll probably get all sketchy and waffle about the purposelessness of marriage and run off with the primate-looking werewolf in Bermuda shorts, which is really a dick move. But then, see #1.

13 - It doesn't matter whether you're 5, 15, 25, or 105, having the "birds and the bees" discussion with your dad will always be uncomfortable. For both of you.

14 - There may be some generational conflicts of expectation surrounding said "Birds and bees" when you date (pardon....court? become betrothed to?) your centenarian. You've been warned.

15 - No dude ever looks masculine, commanding, or virile while SPARKLING.

16 - Alaska has "really good science programs."

17 - When  you're forced to choose between a knuckle-dragging Bermuda shorts-wearing half-wit who probably eats raw ground beef and loves you for NO GOOD REASON AT ALL and a wimpy, pale, whiny, dead guy who gets all glittery in the sun: probably best not to snuggle up against one for warmth while making the other one watch.

18 - Secret engagements. Never a good idea.

19 - Pissing off super powerful vampires with better hair than yours - also, never a good idea.

20 - Mobilizing an army of brooding, trendy vampires to fight the vicious baby-vamps that are subservient to that good-hair-lady? Surprisingly GOOD IDEA. Turns out they're all brooding and trendy for a reason. Mostly that has to do with the civil war, and scorned lovers, but it makes for some burly fighting.

21 - Supernatural boyfriends are, in general, simply not a good idea. It's difficult enough to manage cross-cultural relationships, or relationships with a significant age difference, or secret relationships parents don't approve of. Roll all of that up inside a "he'll never die and you're desperate to become soulless like him" wrapper and its simply too much for the average mouth-breathing 18 year-old girl to handle. Again - see #1.

22 - Dinner dates with sparkly un-dead are sort of a drag. The upside: you'll never have to worry that he won't like your cooking.

23 - Given the choice between nomadic baseball groupie and un-dead fangirl: go with baseball! Baseball players are the sexy. Clammy, cold, dead guys with an ooky tendency toward stalking, dumping, returning, and stalking again are not the sexy.

24 - We all look better doing homework in fields of purple wildflowers. It's impossible not to look positively Shakespearian while being nuzzled in a field of pretty purple flowers.

25 - I'm not sure how you can managed to get knocked up by a dead guy, but judging from the previews, that's exactly what happens. That's another conversation you probably don't want to have with your dad.

26 - Hang around with werewolves long enough and you'll probably get slashed. Mauled. Bitten. Snacked on for dinner. But hey, they'll lobby that at least they're alive and their body temperature is reasonably above room temperature. You're supposed to be wooed by this. This is insane.

27 - Humans have a very lame sense of smell.

28 - Synthetic versus down? Synthetic would be better. Werewolf in Bermuda shorts only in an absolute pinch. It'll make that secret fiance very testy.

29 - Yellow is a pretty fetching color for graduation caps and gowns.

30 - Melodrama is highly, highly, highly overrated. And, in general, is a huge repellant to the gentlemen. SO, if you're high-drama, wishy-washy, indecisive, given to tantrums and dramatic cliff-jumps: avoid human men, stick to the beasts and the dead guys. They'll -- for some INEXPLICABLE REASON -- pine for you to no end.

There ya have it. Now go live prosperous, highly successful lives. Because I've just shared everything you need to know about life. Really. It's all you need to know.